Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 16:54:21 PDT
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From: surfpunk@osc.versant.com (ORTVA CTC ZRFFNTR)
To: surfpunk@osc.versant.com (SURFPUNK Technical Journal)
Subject: [surfpunk-0088] USENET: We are Becoming Politically Correct Sheep
> The only thing that will cause the death of Usenet is a
> *halt* to discussion on so-called "delicate" subjects...
>
> -- abbey1@husc10.harvard.edu (Joshua Abbey)
Quite right. One prodigy is enough.
The three postings below are all by Tim May.
They're in cronological order.
You'll have to imagine the other hundred messages that mix with these.
strick
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 93 02:20:06 GMT
From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Subject: GIF
std. decrypt, then open
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Version: 2.2
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=hPyII
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----
--
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.
________________________________________________________________________
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children,alt.config,netcom.netnews
Date: Sat, 03 Jul 93 09:28:29 GMT
From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Subject: GIFs--Now it can be told
Xref: netcom.com alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children:89 alt.config:17255
netcom.netnews:1433
One week ago tonight a new group appeared at my site,
"alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children," a group certain to provoke
controversy, to bring out the Net Cops, and to induce a certain kind
of "Stockholm Syndrome," wherein some folks scramble to initiate
censorship prior even to the Feds doing it. (Their battle cry is "Eeek! If
we don't nip this in the bud, _right now_, think of what might
happen!)
My experience has been that these Net.Censors are usually too quick to
claim something has clearly gone beyond the bounds of decency and
acceptability. Thankfully, they usually fail in their efforts.
Anyway, seeing this strange new group appear on my system, I decided
to conduct an experiment.
I posted an "encrypted GIF," not further identified, and waited for
the reaction. The file was as follows (only part of it shown):
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: 2.2
b2cCrVJKUYUZf7UBA/i1tSSz66dOx4+cJKzNkm1JBhGigMdRvxM8Slm3TyC7kgWW
L8J3w/On10thisi487rU/Gl7xOMajxCQedHrb6k0+wYDGjxmVcu9xwLWAWpkgq+5
fUiNKBnF/SUA/JisFrWvn63rt44n+DqROwx8CXuSvL1mUdqLRTS0t/timjHnhIwC
VmLN1FTnSD8BBACFa38SqiwByarfcVhFg/fuKWc4AgKtYqSt5oWW6sYLckC3nEen
ZcHV+DNFo36Exg7r0trapoBXpjoe9ENCsCbFJ7i/M7FwFYvK1QAcxQ6zGt+3HICM
9Hsxg1d5Goqp4+nmpW+9Y/UVY16+WVl9moY3c7Iv04Cp0ipu2B5qfIxPZoSMAlKv
.....
Not to my surprise, about 20 people have (so far) requested the key to
this file. (The whole encryption rationale is covered later.) I didn't
reply to them...some of them asked for the key a second time!
What surprised me is that nobody carefully looked at the file. Here it
is again, with some places marked:
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: 2.2
b2cCrVJKUYUZf7UBA/i1tSSz66dOx4+cJKzNkm1JBhGigMdRvxM8Slm3TyC7kgWW
L8J3w/On10thisi487rU/Gl7xOMajxCQedHrb6k0+wYDGjxmVcu9xwLWAWpkgq+5
^^^^
fUiNKBnF/SUA/JisFrWvn63rt44n+DqROwx8CXuSvL1mUdqLRTS0t/timjHnhIwC
^^
VmLN1FTnSD8BBACFa38SqiwByarfcVhFg/fuKWc4AgKtYqSt5oWW6sYLckC3nEen
^
ZcHV+DNFo36Exg7r0trapoBXpjoe9ENCsCbFJ7i/M7FwFYvK1QAcxQ6zGt+3HICM
^^^^
9Hsxg1d5Goqp4+nmpW+9Y/UVY16+WVl9moY3c7Iv04Cp0ipu2B5qfIxPZoSMAlKv
.......
I put a couple of other "subliminal messages" in, which I suppose
could provoke the Religious Right into squawking that "Satanic
messages" are being hidden in computer files *that children could
possibly read*. Gasp!
Needless to say, such ASCII surgery performed on a PGP file (which, by
the way, was just some random message someone had sent me a while
back, utterly unreadable by anyone other than the two of us--and not
even that after I mutated various characters) makes it completely
unreadable. Even if someone had the other half of the PGP key
pair--which never existed--the file would not even checksum as a legal
PGP file!
(Putting plaintext into the file was both a message I hoped astute
readers would eventually notice--though it *is* pretty hard to
see--and an ironclad proof that the file could not be a real PGP
message, let alone a GIF, let alone kiddie porn.)
There are some quasi-legitimate issues surrounding the area of child
erotica. Was the child coerced? Was consent meaningful? Etc.
But the posting of mere bits qua bits causing such anger and flamage
indicates a serious overreaction.
Are mere thoughts the crime? Orwell covered this, didn't he?
* What if such images merely "look like" children (and just what is the
age of consent? 18? 16? "Children" of 15 can get married in most
countries of the world.)...are such "fakes" illegal?
* What if they are computer-generated images, of children that never
existed outside of a computer? Which children were exploited? We're
back to thoughtcrime again. (Don't laugh, a leading interpretation is
that even computer-generated child porn would be illegal, not because
of crimes committed against children, but because of the "atmosphere"
and "climate" it might produce. That is, thoughtcrime.)
* What if the images were morphs? Not wholly computer-generated, but the
morph of an adult image into that of a child?
* What if one 15-year old child took photos of a another 15-year old
child? What if one child "exploited" another? What if a child took
pictures of herself, self-portraits?
* What if the images, if they were ever to be posted, originated
someplace where they are legal? Perhaps Amsterdam, someone suggested.
If the U.S government tries to stop the Net (which is already a market
anarchy, thankfully) from distributing this material, mightn't all the
various countries that have different laws than ours do the same
thing? There goes alt.fan.salman.rushdie. And there goes soc.motss and
all the "normal" alt.binaries.pictures.* groups. Of course it won't
likely happen, nor will alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children go
away,either. Get used to it. (Again, I don't care for it, but wailing
and moaning won't make it go away.)
* What if someone scanned-in images from the widely available books by
David Hamilton, or Robert Mapplethorpe? Certainly many of these photos
are of nude children...would the imminent death of Usenet finally
happen if someone went down to B. Dalton Books, bought a David
Hamilton collection, and posted some of the photos in a.b.p.e.c.?
So, I would encourage folks to lighten up. In a week on the Net, not a
single kiddie porn picture has been posted. And if it does happen, try
to just ignore it. The kid whose picture was taken is probably grown
up by now (I'm guessing that many such images are from old magazines,
etc.). In any case, the occasional picture is hardly going to create a
new slave trade in children.
The issue of how the media may react is a more serious one. Part of
the reason I'm explaining my little experiment now is to make sure my
posting, at least, is not used by some nitwit reporter as the basis of
a story. (If it's being used, then he'll soon have egg on his face.)
That's the story. I hope you enjoyed the ride.
P.S. I said I'd say something about why I used encryption. Aside from
not being a real PGP-readable file, the idea was to make it look like
one. This is the likeliest way for such material to get posted, along
with anonymous remailers. The "look for the key in the 'usual places'"
bit was to resonate with the "binary nerve gas" idea, where the
dangerous pieces are stored separately and only combined at the last
minute. I don't know if such techniques are already in use, but I
expect them soon.
The mutant condors that one reader (who claimed to be a Pope in the
Church of the Subgenius, but who humorlessly missed the joke--but I
forgive him, for he knew not what he saw) wanted to feed me to, can
now stop circling my house.
-Tim May
--
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.
________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 12:04:34 -0700
Message-Id: <9307061904.AA12415@netcom.netcom.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Subject: We are Becoming Politically Correct Sheep
Perry Metzger writes, about the reaction to the "junk bits" file I posted
in a controversial new group, "alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children":
>Michael Ross says:
>> Tim,
>>
>> That was very manipulative, and did not achieve much.
>
>I wholely disagree. Tim's post to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children
>was a valuable exercise even given its limitations.
>
Of course I agree with Perry, though I also respect the others who have
posted disagreements (sometimes strong!) here on this List or in the
various newsgroups...that's what free speech is all about.
Bear in mind that most of the "Cypherpunks agenda," to the extent we can
identify it, is likely to provoke ordinary citizens into _outrage_. Talk of
anonymous mail, digital money, money laundering, information markets, data
havens, undermining authority, transnationalism, and all the rest (insert
your favorite idea) is not exactly mainstream.
While I don't personally care for the "kiddie porn" I've seen (the David
Hamilton photos of young girls and the occasional Mapplethorpe photos in
news reports), the issues raised in this area are of great importance. (I
don't plan to argue for or against these images in this forum, though.)
If we back down every time a censor screams "Illegal!," then very few of
our agenda items will ever see the light of day.
So long as physical violence or coercion is not involved, I see no reason
to restrict the activities of others. I completely reject the concept of
"class-based crimes," such as:
- conventional erotica and pornography should be banned because it is
degrading to women, objectifies them, etc. (ironically, unless of course it
is "made by and for wimmin," a loophole added by Andrea Dworkin and her
supporters after they discovered their anti-porn crusade in Canada and
elsewhere would put an end to Lesbian porn mags like "Yellow Silk"!).
- I put "child porn" in this category because only the actual coercion of
children--if it is happening--should be stopped. (And even this is
confusing, as coercion of children happens all the time--we call it
"parenting.")
A mere image carries no proof that this coercion has happened, for the many
reasons I have cited and others have cited (e.g., the child may have
willingly participated, the "child" may be 18 and merely look 15, the
images may have come from other countries where the customs and laws are
different, the image may have been computer-generated or morphed, and so
on).
- "racist jokes" are being targeted for elimination in many of the Usenet
groups, by halting the carrying of "offensive" newsgroups. Legal purists
will of course note that this is not "censorship" in the legal/government
sense. IMHO, the English language needs a new term for something between
the one extreme of government censorship and the other extreme of personal
choice, perhaps something like "institutional censorship." Being a free
market sort of person, I have no problems with, say, Apple Computer
deciding not to carry "alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children" or
"rec.humor.funny.cripples," but it still a _form_ of "institutional
censorship." [especially when they are acting so as to head off legal
action, as I describe below]
- read the "academic freedom" group (I forget the exact title...search for
"acad-free" in your newsreader) and you'll see that more and more
universities are using the "sexual harassment" laws/codes to stop certain
newsgroups, to halt the distribution of sexually oriented images, and to
take disciplinary action against students (mostly male) who have put GIFs
on their computers or workstations (apparently female students who walk
past an office in which female models are used as startup screens have
decided they are being "sexually assaulted" or "harassed").
[An important point to make here is that many of these institutions are
taking actions largely because they fear that if they don't, the plaintiffs
will take their case to the _government_ legal system, perhaps by suing the
university for "condoning an atmosphere hostile to womym and other people
of color." If there was no threat of ultimate legal action, much of this
"institutional censorship" would vanish, and people could just concentrate
on doing their jobs, with or without calendars of "Miss Usenet" gracing
their walls.]
- discussion of ways to undermine the State, via crypto anarchy and strong
crypography, are likely to be targets of future crackdowns. Sedition laws,
conspiracy laws, RICO, etc. How long before speaking on these matters earns
a warning letter from your university or your company? [Again, I think it's
the "big stick" of ultimate government action that spurs these univeristy
and company policies. Apple fears being shut down for having "involvement"
with a terrorist plot, Emory University fears being sued for millions of
dollars for "conspiring" to degrade wimmin of color, etc.)
- how long before "rec.guns" is no longer carried at many sites, as they
fear having their universities or companies linked to discussions of
"assault weapons" and "cop-killer bullets"?
[Prediction: Many companies and universities, under pressure from the Feds,
will block groups in which encrypted files are posted. After all, if one
encrypts, one must have something to hide, and that could expose the
university to legal action from some group that feels aggrieved.]
So, free speech is under assault across the country. The tort system is
being abused to stifle dissentinting views (and lest you think I am only a
capitalist, only a free marketeer, the use of "SLAPP suits"--"Strategic
Lawsuits Against Public Participation"--by corporations or real estate
developers to threaten those who dare to publicly speak against their
projects is a travesty, a travesty that the courts have only recently begun
to correct).
We are becoming a nation of sheep, fearing the midnight raid, the knock on
the door. We fear that if we tell a joke, someone will glare at us and
threaten to sue us _and_ our company! And so companies are adopting "speech
codes" and other such baggage of the Orwell's totalitarian state. Political
correctness is extending its tendrils into nearly every aspect of life in
America.
Time to fight back.
-Tim May
--
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: by arrangement
Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
The SURFPUNK Technical Journal is a dangerous multinational hacker zine
originating near BARRNET in the fashionable western arm of the northern
California matrix. Quantum Californians appear in one of two states,
spin surf or spin punk. Undetected, we are both, or might be neither.
________________________________________________________________________
Send postings to , subscription requests
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